The Olfactory Narrative

Paolo Salvagione, the Sausalito-based artist, has completed a new body of work. As with several of his other recent projects, I was invited to compose an accompanying essay. His new work, Vessels, is an exploration of smell. It is a set of containers of liquids that emit select odors. Some are organic, some synthetic, and all allow him to explore issues of memory, among other things. The work will be installed at the Headlands Center for the Arts on Sunday, April 22, from noon until 5:00pm.

The painter says that the graphic novelist damages the image by trampling it with text. The video artist says that the painter leverages nostalgia for ancient craft at the expense of modern craft. The sound artist says that the visual artist’s hegemony keeps sound registered as a second-class citizen, and then mumbles something about “apartheid,”as if floating a rhetorical test balloon. (It sinks.) The sculptor says that the visual artist and sound artist are coddled in the gallery, while sculptures weather the elements in the inevitable, and far from Edenic, “garden.”The tactile artist bemoans being stuck at the kids table. And the smell artist? No one asks the smell artist. No one notices the smell artist is in the room.

But since you ask: The smell artist prefers the graphic novelist’s earlier works because the aged paper has a dusty perfume. The smell artist can’t get close enough to the painter’s work because of those temperamental security guards — but just looking at it summons fond recollections of turpentine. The smell artist prefers sound art when it goes awry: there’s nothing like a short circuit to wake up one’s nostrils. The smell artist prefers sculpture during the weathering process: the musk of warm rain, the burn of tarmac under a hot sun, the tinge of iron ionizing in the open air, the way harsh winter air freezes nose hair. As for the tactile artist’s work, the smell artist simply remembers to wash because, reportedly, one raises one’s hand to one’s face 15.7 times per hour.

No one asks the smell artist, which is fine because the smell artist doesn’t speak much. The smell artist works in the manner of a nuclear scientist: in silence, with deliberate motion. The smell artist employs substances that, if mishandled, would fill a gallery with sensory overload, and just as quickly empty it of its patrons. Smells are reduced carefully to essential oils or their synthetic proxies. They are carefully contained in vessels: glass decanters whose hoses bring to mind medical equipment. The decanters are carefully engineered; with a simple touch they emit the requisite measure of scent. The decanters are modest sculptures, their glass essentially transparent. The aerosol they produce is so fine, down to 2.5 Ã¥ngströms, one can barely hear it as it is emerges. Some of the liquids are as clear as the glass, and thus bring into question the concept, the purpose, of hue; released as vapor, they all are almost invisible. And finally, aligned in a particular sequence, the decanters tell the story that the smell artist desires to tell.

These are the three previous Salvagione piece for which I have composed essays: Blackwork, Orbit, and Competitive Swinging. I will have an essay in a forthcoming publication from Extracurricular Press documenting another of his works, Element (images and details at boondesign.com). And here is a video documenting one of his exhibits, for which I provided music supervision (or as he delightfully put it, euphonic coordination): “An excuse to respond.”

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Current Activities

• February 6, 2019: First day of the new semester of the 15-week "Sounds of Brands" course I teach once a year at the Academy of Art in San Francisco.
• March 22, 2019: I'm giving a talk at the Algorithmic Art Assembly, two days of events in San Francisco: aaassembly.org.
• December 13, 2019: This day marks the 23rd anniversary of Disquiet.com.
• January 7, 2020: This day marks the 8th anniversary of the Disquiet Junto.
• Ongoing: The Disquiet Junto series of weekly communal music projects explore constraints as a springboard for creativity and productivity. There is a new project each Thursday afternoon (California time), and it is due the following Monday at 11:59pm: disquiet.com/junto.
• My book on Aphex Twin's landmark 1994 album, Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, published as part of the 33 1/3 series, an imprint of Bloomsbury, is now in its second printing. It has been translated into Spanish, and is due out soon in Japanese, as well. It can be purchased at amazon.com, among other places.

disquiet junto

The Disquiet Junto is an ongoing weekly collaborative music-making space in which restraints are used as a springboard for creativity. Subscribe to the announcement list at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto. There is an FAQ. ... These are the 5 most recent weekly projects: